Our ambition is to meet environmental and societal requirements to develop a clean and sustainable chemical industry.
The Paris FLOW Tech platform develops innovative processes that meet the social, societal, environmental and economic requirements of modern chemical industry and is based on the 12 principles of green chemistry.
By actively participating in the development of flow chemistry, the Paris Flow Tech platform works towards reducing the environmental impact associated with fine pharmaceutical and cosmetic chemical industries, by promoting a transition towards safer and more environmentally friendly chemical reaction processes (compared to traditional batch processes).
Flow Chemistry allows :
Making processes safer, volumes of reactants and the size of the installations are smaller than for batch processes, which makes it possible to better circumscribe the extent of the danger zone1.
Improved safety conditions allow working with dangerous, highly exothermic reactions and unstable intermediates. Indeed, the amount of unstable reaction mixture in the reactor at any given time is greatly reduced compared to a traditional batch process. The surface/volume ratio is also much more favorable, allowing for better control of temperature and reaction exotherm.
Stimulation of innovation and industrialization of projects with improved energy and ecological performance compared to batch technologies. Flow chemistry allows for an increase in the environmental efficiency of chemical synthesis pathways, leading to green and sustainable chemistry. The optimal efficiency of mass transfer in micro/milli-reactors opens the way to non-energy-consuming ecological reactions that can involve biosourced reactants and solvents.
On the platform, the coupling of clean energy and chemical activation sources to continuous flow reactors accelerates the development of new eco-efficient continuous flow processes with low energy consumption, lower amounts of reactants and solvents, and therefore a reduction in related waste and treatment. The environmental benefits of flow chemistry versus batch chemistry are increasingly documented in the scientific literature 234567 in terms of energy consumption, GHG emissions, potential for human toxicity, etc.
1 Seqens. La chimie en flux continu au service des procédés CDMO La Chimie en flux continu: our expertise at the customer's service - Seqens
2 Newman SG & Jensen KF (2013) The role of flow in green chemistry and engineering. Green Chem., 2013, 15, 1456-1472
2 Kralisch D. et al. (2012), Transfer of the Epoxidation of Soybean Oil from Batch to Flow Chemistry Guided by Cost and Environmental Issues. ChemSusChem, 2012, 5, 300–311
4 Vaccaro G. (2017) Sustainable Flow Chemistry: Methods and Applications, 336 p.
5 Hessel, V et al. (2021) Quantitative Sustainability Assessment of Flow Chemistry–From Simple Metrics to Holistic Assessment. ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. 2021, 9, 29, 9508–9540
6 Dallinger D and Kappe C.O (2017) Why flow means green – Evaluating the merits of continuous processing in the context of sustainability. Current Opinion in Green and Sustainable Chemistry 7
7 Lummiss, JA.M. et al. (2017) Towards More Efficient, Greener Syntheses through Flow Chemistry.” The Chemical Record 17, 7: 667–680
Another pillar of sustainable development is the societal impact of the platform
Whether through initial or continuing education, the PFT platform will be a "cultural breeding ground" that will provide today's and tomorrow's engineers and researchers with cutting-edge training on these innovative and sustainable techniques, enabling them to develop their skills and have a major impact on the local and regional industrial ecosystem. It will also promote the dissemination of French expertise in Europe and internationally.
The technological innovations and know-how generated by the Paris FLOW Tech platform will also have a major societal impact on: (i) the restructuring of a new, sustainable and responsible chemistry industry in Île-de-France; (ii) the quality of work in this sector; (iii) the nature of its jobs; (iv) the creation of positions in emerging, transdisciplinary and highly qualified themes at the forefront of technological breakthroughs.
Moreover, at a time when the issue of industrial sovereignty has become a priority in the context of the Covid-19 crisis, the current growth of flow chemistry represents a real opportunity for the relocalization of key chemical activities. The PFT platform will contribute to convincing and reassuring industrialists of the relevance of flow chemistry for their risk-taking in order to remain competitive in the global market.
